The effectiveness of integrated transdiagnostic therapy on marital intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expression in women with marital burnout.

Subject Areas : Islamic-Iranian Family Studies Journal

Parvaneh Zanganeh ¹ , mohsen rasouli ² , Maryam Akbari ³

1 - 1. PhD Student in Counseling, Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran
2 - 2. Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran
3 - 3. Department of Psychology, Sanandaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj, Iran

Received: 2023-12-01 Accepted : 2023-12-19 Published : 2023-10-23

Keywords: Emotional Expression, Marital Intimacy, mental vitality, integrated transdiagnostic therapy, marital burnout,

Abstract :

Introduction : marriage is a turning point in human life and one of the most important decisions of any person throughout life, factors such as arguments and arguments may threaten the health of living together. Methods of reducing health-related problems include integrated meta-diagnostic therapy. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of integrated meta-diagnostic therapy on marital intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expression in women with marital burnout. Method: semi-experimental research design with pre-test design-post-test with control group. Statistical research community includes women with marital burnout visiting counseling and psychological centers of the secret family, hope tomorrow, life of the city in the second six months of 1402, of which 150 were. To select the sample size, 24 women with high marital burnout were selected based on targeted sampling methods and based on entry and exit criteria, and were randomized in two groups as an integrated meta-diagnostic test group (12 people) and a witness Group (12 Participant). The experimental group received ten 45-minute sessions of integrated meta-diagnostic therapy Barlow et al. (2011) once a week. Findings: the data were analyzed using the covariance analysis test in SPSS version 26 software. The P rate was considered less than 0.05 meaningful. Findings: results of covariance analysis showed that integrated meta-diagnostic therapy has a significant effect on marital intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expression in women with marital burnout(001/0>P). The effect on the marital intimacy variable was 832/0% on the Etta coefficient, 567/0% on the mental life variable, and 731/0% on the emotional instrumentation variable. Conclusion: therefore, the results of the present study show that integrated meta-diagnostic therapy can lead to improved marital intimacy, emotional expression and mental vitality in women with marital burnout. So this finding can be of interest to family counseling centers, psychologists, and couples.Extended AbstractIntroductionMarriage is a turning point in human life and one of the most important decisions of every person during his life. In fact, marriage has been described as one of the most important and necessary human relationships, because it provides the basic structure for establishing a family relationship and raising the next generation. Among the main reasons for marriage are mainly the experience of love and affection, having a partner and companion in life, satisfying emotional and psychological needs, increasing happiness and satisfaction, and experiencing growth and perfection (Bazargan, Ramezani, Atashpoor, & Amiri, 2021) and the family is also one It is one of the main pillars of society and the smallest part of society, and it is considered as one of the most effective environments in a person's sexual and mental health (Soltani Zadeh, & Bajlani, 2020).     One of the most common social phenomena that threatens the institution of the family, and its effect not only on the family but also on the whole society, is marital burnout. According to Hu, Jiang and Wang (2019), the basic elements of a healthy marriage include intimacy, commitment and marital satisfaction. Therefore, women's satisfaction with their life and overall health depends more on their marital happiness than men. Marital compatibility is satisfaction from marriage and prevention of any coldness and exhaustion, which leads to tension and conflict as an inseparable and permanent part of marriage and marital relations, and if the couple cannot resolve it well, it will have destructive effects on the family along with states that one of them is the phenomenon of marital exhaustion (Shah Rajabian, & Emadi Chamesi, 2019).     One of the variables that can play an irreplaceable role in the stability of married life and reducing burnout is intimacy (Gohari, Zahra Kar, & Nazari, 2014). From the point of view of Bagarozi (2014), the intimacy of emotional and romantic experience with another person is defined. Similarly, the concept of intimacy is often defined as relationships combined with love, which include warm feelings, closeness, connection and affection (Chan, Tu and Wong, 2015). Intimacy is a dynamic concept in human relationships, especially in couple relationships, which means openness and non-inhibition in relationships and the closeness of two people in various emotional, logical and functional dimensions (Azari, Kazemian Moghadam, & Mehrabi Zadeh, 2020).       Another variable that can play a reducing role in couples' marital exhaustion is the concept of mental vitality. Mental vitality shows inner experiences full of energy, and in fact having mental and physical energy is necessary to experience a sense of enthusiasm and vitality, and it has a complex structure that is related to functioning and experiencing optimal functioning (Charles, Carver, Michael , & Schemer, 2014). Another important factor that affects the strength and durability of the family and the reduction of marital exhaustion is emotional expression (Korani, 2022). According to King and Emmons (1990), expressiveness in itself is not a factor for health, but rather a person's underlying feeling about self-expressiveness that can determine its benefit or loss (Vahdani, Khazri, Mahmoudporou Farah Bakhsh, 2020). Due to different factors such as anxieties and pressures that enter a couple's life and become more intense and sometimes unbearable; In addition to them, one of the interventions that has not been paid much attention to its effects and effectiveness on marital burnout can be mentioned the integrated metadiagnostic therapy (Allen, McHugh, & Barlow, 2008). Therefore, according to the history and the importance of societal interventions in the field of marriage and its consequences, and taking into account the lack of research in the field of interventions on intimacy, vitality and marital exhaustion, the main issue in this research is whether Does integrated transdiagnostic therapy have an effect on intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expressiveness in women with marital burnout?MethodologyThe current research is practical in terms of purpose and semi-experimental in terms of method with a pre-test-post-test design with a control group. The statistical population of the study included women with marital burnout who referred to the counseling and psychological centers of the Razi family, Omid Farda, Hayat Shahr Karaj in the second 6 months of 1402, who gave their informed consent to participate in this research. In order to select a sample size of 24 women with high marital burnout based on the purposeful sampling method and based on the inclusion criteria including willingness to participate in treatment, having marital burnout and a high score in the questionnaire (147), no legal action for divorce, having At least one child, age range between 25 and 45 years, having at least a diploma, no acute medical-physical problems, no severe mental disorder using (BSI_53), no simultaneous treatment intervention, no abuse of alcohol and psychoactive substances. Based on the client's self-declaration, not separating from his wife and exit criteria including not participating in more than three consecutive sessions and four non-consecutive sessions, divorce and separation from his wife during counseling sessions were selected. In this way, firstly, 150 women referring to counseling and psychotherapy centers were administered the Marital Exhaustion Questionnaire, and then 24 women who obtained the highest score in this questionnaire were selected in two groups. They were randomly assigned as a single hyperdiagnostic test group (12 people) and a control group (12 people). People in the control group, as well as people who were diagnosed with high marital burnout but could not participate in the treatment sessions due to the limitation in the number of samples, were put on the waiting list to receive treatment.ResultsThe average age of women in the test group was 37 years and in the control group was 16/39 years. Data analysis was conducted to determine the effectiveness of integrated meta-diagnostic therapy on marital intimacy, mental vitality, and emotional expression in women with marital burnout. According to Table 2, the average score of marital intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expression in the post-test phase increased in the test group compared to the control group, but in the pre-test phase there were few changes.  Covariance analysis test was used to determine the significance of this difference given that it is necessary to inhibit the pre-test effect. Before using the covariance analysis test, its assumptions were examined. The shapirovilk test was used to check the normality of the distribution of pre-test and post-test scores. Accordingly, the meaningful level for all variables was greater than 0.05 and the assumption of normality of the distribution of scores was accepted. Another hypothesis of the implementation of the multivariate covariance analysis test was the homogeneity of the variance of dependent variables among groups, which was used to examine the establishment of the Levin test. Levin's test results were not meaningful in any of the variables. Therefore, the assumption that variables are homogeneous was confirmed. The box test was used to check the homogeneity of the covariances Matrix, and its meaningful level was obtained equal to 0.519. Since this value was larger than the meaningful level (001/0) required to reject the null assumption, the hesmani matrix of covariances was approved. The results of the covariance analysis are presented in Table 3.Table 1: Intertestable effects of multivariate covariance analysis after testing the variables of marital intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expression The results of the multivariate covariance analysis show that the intervention of integrated meta-diagnostic therapy (by controlling the pre-test effect as a conjugating factor on the post-test) has had a significant impact on increasing marital intimacy, mental vitality, and excitement.DiscussionThe results showed that integrated transdiagnostic therapy has a significant effect on marital intimacy, mental vitality and emotional expression in women with marital burnout. This finding is consistent with the studies of Soleimani, Amir Fakhrai, Karamati (2020) Samavi because they showed that transdiagnostic psychotherapy has an effect on intimacy and reducing depression. Therefore, according to the study, integrated transdiagnostic treatment has a very important effect on reducing depression, because this treatment is designed for emotional disorders. This intervention approach helps women with depression by providing emotional awareness based on the present, cognitive flexibility, emotional avoidance and behaviors arising from emotion, awareness of emotions and their tolerance, endogenous (mental) and situation-based emotional exposure. slow to face stressful cases of negative emotions and solve them. The studies of Zimzani and Imani (2015) have also shown that extradiagnostic treatment has been very effective in reducing the symptoms of depression.ConclusionOne of the biggest challenges that couples who are stuck in a negative exchange is not finding a compatible way out of this crisis (Khojaste Mehr, Mohammadi, Sudani, & Abbaspour, 2018). Negative interactions increase the probability of divorce and decrease the positive aspects of marriage such as satisfaction, commitment, friendship and trust in the relationship. Couples who can manage burnout in a relationship by using positive methods and using less negative interactions create an environment where there is more opportunity for mental vitality and agreement about family problems, and this is one of the important ways to reduce Exhaustion is in the relationship (Johansson, 2019).LimitationsThe study was conducted on a specific population that may limit the generalizability of results. Future studies should consider a larger and more diverse sample to increase the application of findings to different populations. The timeframe of this study may limit understanding of the long-term effects of treatment. A longitudinal approach can provide further insight into the sustainable effects of interventions. In addition, comparing the effectiveness of the treatment used in this study with other therapeutic interventions can provide a more comprehensive understanding of their relative strengths and weaknesses. Future research should be aimed at understanding the underlying mechanisms through which therapies apply their effects, helping to correct and effectiveness of therapeutic interventions. The findings of this study should be integrated with caution in clinical practice according to the specific areas and needs of individuals. Counselors and psychologists may use the insights from this study to better adapt their approaches when dealing with marital burnout and emotional experiences, and ensure that interventions are culturally and contextually appropriate.Conflict of interestThis research was taken from the doctoral thesis and was carried out under the supervision of the ethics committee of the Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj branch, with the code of ethics IR.IAU.SDJ.REC.1401.095. Also, the cooperation of the participants was voluntary and their consent was declared. In addition, they were informed about the confidentiality and opt-out aspects of the research at each stage.FundsThe current research is derived from a specialized doctoral thesis and was carried out without financial support.AcknowledgementsI would like to express my gratitude to the supervisor and the couples who participated in this research.